Merry Christmas! God Jul! Most of the population is raised Christian so there's none of that Happy Holidays crap. Just good ol' Christmas.

And while not exactly the most jolly Christmas post, I couldn't find a fitting spot on the last post, so here you go. The bus trip across Sweden gave me time to catch up on my Nietzsche. His argument that most friendships are simply means of using people seemed pretty bleak. He makes some obvious examples of someone you befriend in class because they take much better notes than you do. When the class ends the friendship ends as well. OK that's pretty clearly a friendship where people are used. Another example was someone you play sports with: you cannot play without an opponent so you befriend them so you can play a game you enjoy. That's arguable, befriending someone as a means to make you happy seems like a pretty normal thing to. The last example of a friendship of using one another is when people pick friends that are like them or complement/compliment them. The claim is that subconsciously we pick them to make ourselves feel better, and thus the friendship is another means of utility.
Nietzsche suggests that a better friendship is based on mutual enjoyment; that you must actually like the person you play sports with or like your friends. But, aren't people then just befriending one another so they can enjoy each other's company? Seems just as bad as playing sports with someone so you can enjoy the game. The best friendship is one from mutual inspiration, where one befriends people who you see as better than you and seek to emulate their virtues. Again, being friends with someone in order to improve yourself seems similar to the friendship with the person who takes good notes. Nietzsche looks like he wasn't so much describing what does and doesn't make a friend but the difference between friends/acquaintances and your bestest best friend in the whole wide world. Looks like the only way not to end up using someone is to never have friends of any sort, which would be one sucky life. Alternately you could just not say "using each other" and making it sound so base and manipulative, but call it symbiosis. If you get really cynical about it, you can suck the joy out of pretty much everything.
After all, Christmas is nothing but celebrating the birthday of the founder of a intolerant religion with a history of terrible violence and cruelty. But that isn't going to stop me from enjoying it. It's snowing! The first white Christmas I've ever seen, I finally can try out my new parka. Later everyone, spend some quality time with your friends (screw Nietzschean cynicism!) and family. Hejdå!

Back from my first trip, Göteborg was quite fun. The town was not at its most fun since it was so close to Christmas and everyone was going home and shops closed early. Still there were plenty of fun things to do; I went to the Liseberg amusement park where they put Christmas lights on pretty much everything. It was really beautiful. The camera doesn't work too well at night though, so there weren't many good pics.
There's a debate as to whether Stockholm or Göteborg is better, I don't know I only saw a small part of Stockholm, though it was awesome but I saw lots of Göteborg which was pretty cool, but also the slowest time of the year. There's an avenue with nightclubs and restaurants and I swear every place that was open had a bouncer. And since when does Hard Rock Cafe have bouncers? They're a restaurant!
As much as I enjoy traveling with a group of friends, just wandering around and doing things at my own pace and going off on a whim was really fun. I found these little mountains that offered a wonderful view of the whole city, and they were pristine, not what I would imagine one would find in the middle of a city at all.

I gotta say, some of the best parts about Göteborg are the street signs:

"Warning: Do not grab hands reaching out of the ice!" Nothing inherently funny about that sign, but it reminded me of the warnings on high voltage equipment that led one to believe that an evil electrical octopus would be released if you touched the machine.



For the safety of the pedestrians, trams must display the current emotion of the driver. In this case it is advisable to get the hell out of the way.






Beware of ass grabbers!
OR
Sweden is so supportive of same sex parents they have their own designated walkway.








I'm sure it means something like Baby Seal Street in Swedish.








heeheehee. Childish? Yes, but you laughed too.











And lastly, there's a traditional Christmas soda in Sweden called Julmust. Everyone loves it so much, and I like it too. Thing is, it tastes exactly like Dr. Pepper but they hate Dr. Pepper here. Silly Swedes. Now the question is, does diet Julmust taste just like regular Julmust?

OK, I'm going to largely be out of town for the next few weeks exploring Sweden. Here's the game plan: tomorrow I take the bus to Göteborg, the second largest city in Sweden, see what there is to see and come back for Christmas (which is the 24th, cuz the Swedes don't know what day Christmas is supposed to be) and have a Swedish Christmas with the other exchange students at one of the nations. Then I go south to Malmö and Lund. I hope to see the twisting torso building and Günther's nightclub and Lund University, Uppsala's rival. If I get bored I might go to Copenhagen. Then I come back to Uppsala for New Year's. A one day trip to Stockholm after that and on January 3rd I'll fly to Kiruna, way the hell up north in the land Sweden forgot. I'll be up there until the 11th, hopefully I'll see the northern lights. I want to see what 24 hour darkness looks like but supposedly there's still a half hour of sun. Damn. Anyway, if you can't get in touch with me, that's probably why.

And before I go, another weirdness about Sweden: We were planning another movie night and the thing that people were all hung up on was the food. They were reluctant to have a movie night because they didn't want to cook something big. So the suggestion was that they just cook a 1 course dinner and then make a dessert. Incredulous, I suggested we just get a pizza instead of doing all that work. They looked at each other and said, "Hey, that's not a bad idea." The fact that they didn't even consider that baffles me. I suspect the Swedes don't like movie nights as much as Americans.

Finns are odd, here is a colloquial expression for "in the beginning of time": "First there was a swamp, a hoe and Jussi." Don't ask, I don't get it either.

I've been going out nearly every day to see if I can get a good pic of the sunset. Most of them have been utterly boring, the sun just goes below the horizon without any spectacular farewell. Today was different though, this one is worthy of being an Arizona sunset. Still, this is the best Sweden can offer and it's average by Tucson standards.

Incidentally I took this pic at exactly 3PM.

Swedes don't seem to enjoy enforcing or obeying rules, too stuffy for them I guess. The copyright protection warning on DVD's says that the office in charge of such things is in Stockholm, yet file sharing is a way of life here. There's a spot where I park my bike when I go to class that says no bicycle parking allowed yet it is surrounded by parked bikes and the sign post itself is used to secure bikes from theft. Driving with one's bike lights off at night it a ticketable offense, yet I'd say easily 90% of the people ride with no lights on. Refunds at grocery stores are not allowed (perhaps a wise policy considering the blatant abuse of that privilege at Sunflower Market) but I sure enough returned something. Why even bother having the rules if nothing happens when you break them?

Word of the Day: genuflect-To bend the knee or touch one knee to the floor or ground, as in worship. To be servilely respectful or deferential; grovel.

It is unfortunate that Americans are so unbelievably stupid and totally ignorant about everything in the world. I was understandably reluctant to believe this, of course but after spending time outside the US I must arrive at the inevitable conclusion that, without exception, all Americans are morons. I was having a discussion with a Persian about Afghanistan and the topic moved into specific geographic details. My knowledge in this area was limited and he pointed out "Aha so it is true that Americans don't know anything about geography!" Sadly so, I mean this guy comes from a country that borders Afghanistan, he was stationed there in the military and his major is Middle Eastern studies and even he knows more about the geography of Afghanistan than I do! Surely I have a deficient education.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Americans don't even know basic facts about their own country. For example, most Americans don't know this but Arizona is very close to North Carolina and borders Louisiana. Also, the state is completely flat and is completely devoid of all plant life, resembling the Gobi desert. The myth that there are mountains or plentiful cacti is a testament to American ignorance. The 100 mile long state has only two cities, Phoenix and Tucson, which are on the northern and southernmost borders, respectively.
We are even totally oblivious as to how our government is set up, apparently (I did not know this until I was kindly enlightened by a European) the US has a parliamentary system where we elect people to elect the president. Contrast this with the false notion taught in our schools that the legislative and executive branches are elected by the people and independently of one another.
So thank you kind peoples of the world for showing me how truly backwards we really are. I will ride a giant condor back home to my clay hut in Tucson and, through a series of grunts and crude drawings in the sand, enlighten others in the ways of the world.

Maybe this post was over the top, maybe not. I'll let you decide.

Riddle me this: how is it even possible that no Swedish video store carries the original Star Wars trilogy? Not a one. And it wasn't like they were all checked out, they didn't have them in stock. And yet they have the Indiana Jones trilogy and movies I would never expect in Europe, like Eurotrip. Just let that swish around in your head a bit. What video store doesn't carry Star Wars? We ended up borrowing the DVD's from a Star Wars freak at our nation and they said that they haven't carried them in video stores in Sweden since 1995. Some Swede is in dire need of a swift kick in the ass for that one.
So we had a nice Star Wars movie marathon, complete with Swedish subtitles. They were interesting but also a bit of a let down. No backwards Swedish for Yoda, and "you must forget what you have learned" just doesn't sound as mystical as "unlearn." Nörf herder was pretty funny though. Beware the mörk side of Kraften!

OK this post is just random bits I'll forget if I don't post them.

Why girls are more fun at parties than guys-
Girl: "We were just discussing oral sex and would like your opinion..."
vs.
Guy: "You know what America's problem is?"

Why Blogger is great: Remembering I wrote an analytical book review on my blog, I then used that as a starting point on an essay on said book, saving me time and effort. It's like procrastinating in reverse.

Apparently in the Swedish military the Commander in Chief (or the Swedish equivalent) does not have the authority to order enlisted personnel to go anywhere. If they don't want to go to Afghanistan, they don't have to. Now, I suppose if your country hasn't been at war in 200 years you can pull that off, but good lord man! What good is a military if you can't order them around?

Also, in Sweden finals are never final. You can take infinite redo's until you pass. Supposedly law students can take up to a year to pass their final. Methinks the Swedes are too forgiving for their own good.

I have been told by people (girls) that the belief that Swedish women are so easy you can successfully proposition them in clubs is false. I was reluctant to believe it myself at first and I certainly never had the balls to try it, but I found out tonight it is true. The following is a dialog I heard first hand:
*guy whispers something in very Swedish looking girl's ear*
Girl: Of course I'll have sex with you!
(I think my impeccable sense of right and wrong might be getting in the way of me having fun.)

Miranda. A new IM program that is really small since there are no ads built in. But the best part is that it allows you to IM people on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and more.

Words of the Day: Defenestration-the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.
hurdy gurdy-a Swedish musical instrument of the 18th century that makes music by rotation of a cylinder studded with pegs. (say it like the Swedish Chef)

I hate what the American education system has done with teaching languages, that is to say NOTHING! I hate the fact that for some reason actually learning language is not mandatory. The classes are required to graduate but there is no actual requirement to learn. Spanish is considered a dirty language so no intellectuals ever actually take the class, which means even in Spanish 4 there are still morons whom you can't ever practice Spanish with. French class is better, or at least every person I know who took French knows it remarkably well. And yet Americans are still rarely fluent in a language besides English. Everyone else in the world speaks more languages than we do.
The Germans obviously have an innate advantage over me when learning Swedish since the two languages are about as close as Spanish and Portuguese. Moreover, I hate that the Swedes are so patronizing to me cuz I can't speak Swedish. When I was at a gasque, they were playing some Jeopardy game and someone told them to speak in English since there was someone who didn't speak Swedish. I was the ONLY person that didn't, so they had to make everything harder for everyone in the room just cuz I was there. They say that's cuz it's rude to speak in a language that someone doesn't understand, I see it as when you're in PE and you step up to bat and everyone in the field moves in. Would it be rude of them not to accommodate for your lesser ability?
They also say it's easy for Swedes to learn English, so why doesn't it work the other way around? Because everything on the TV, radio or computer is in English, it's constantly forced down your throat and you learn it practically in utero. It's not easy, you just have a 10 year head start, which is evidenced by the fact that I am as good at Swedish as a 4 year old. Also, whatever they're teaching us it's not what people actually say. So if I'm expecting "Hello, how are you?" I'll likely get "Sup homie G?" then they'll wonder why I haven't learned anything.

This post brought to you by the panic of not understanding Swedish speech 24 hours before my final.